Many Journeys by Elleth

Nainiër Arafinwëo ar Altariello Falassen Heceldamaro (The Laments of Finarfin and Galadriel on the Shore of Beleriand)

Finarfin's reunion with Galadriel when they meet during the War of Wrath. (Double Drabble.)

Their reunion is not joyful. Galadriel, as she is known these days, in the strange tongue of this bleak land, is a woman grown, grown greater than her own father can hope to match. Hardship and suffering have graven the lines of Beleriand into her face, and etched her eyes to adamant hardness tempered with wisdom, where once, though she was high and proud even in Aman, a certain sweetness rested. Now she seems kin with the broken cliffs on this shore more than with him, moveless as she stands waiting, five hundred swift years later.

“Come home,” he asks.

Her father no longer understands her, she knows. How could he? He has grown little older than in the pictures she carries in her mind, laughing in the fields of Aman unchanging, and for all his share of griefs – healing the Noldor, the news of her brothers’ deaths - he has had time and grace flowing uncounted and little-earned through his fingers, never knowing how much dearer changing time makes sunlight through a golden leaf before it falls and floats away, or the bitter joy of surviving, last of her House.

“No.” It is the only answer to give.

Chapter End Notes

Written for Tam and Kaywinnet on tumblr.